Divorce, Star Trek, Being Your Own Best Ally And Food

We were ill matched for a million reasons, and I married at a time in my life where I needed stability after the loss of my father. We married for the wrong reasons, even though the intentions were pure.

Before I say more, I need to be clear that there isn’t a bad guy in this story and I have long said nothing online about this relationship out of respect for what was and because after so many years having passed, I’m over that period in my life, though I remain eternally grateful for it.

But we were ill matched in every way. And where I needed to expand, he needed to contract. My inclinations made him extremely uncomfortable and felt unstable for him and his inclinations made me feel like I was suffocating.

By the time we had been 6 months into our marriage I was crying alone in a room every night and feeling as if my soul was going to die.

I literally felt like I was going to die. I was not where I belonged.

After months of begging for therapy and him refusing, I reached a point where I was starting to believe I was stuck behind commitments that didn’t serve either of our souls and that this was my lot in life.

It’s a testament to how shut down we both were, that during this time he started to really want to start a family. It horrified me, because the tension and challenges between us felt so obvious and untenable, that the idea of actually starting a family seemed crazy and irresponsible. But he wanted one, and I didn’t. I couldn’t.

In one of those late night feverish journal sessions, I was crying and trying to write myself through the situation when I wrote, “There is no way I would give my children this kind of family, this kind of home and upbringing. My children deserve more than this half lived unconscious life!”

Star Trek

I’m going to derail us to talk about Star Trek for a second.

I know… just bare with me.

If you have ever watched the show, any of them, you’re likely familiar with warp drive, yes? When the Enterprise or any of the ships go into warp drive suddenly the stars start to shoot by so fast that they become one continuous streaming line of light. Then, when the ship drops out of warp suddenly it all stops and though the ship is still moving, the visual outside their windows is one of utter suspension. No bottom, no top, just suspended in vast nothingingness.

When I wrote that sentence in my journal all those years ago, it was as if I had suddenly dropped out of warp speed, and sat there suspended. Only it was visceral. I felt this suspension in my bones, where there was nothing else going on around me. My mind stopped, the writing stopped, I think I might have stopped breathing.

Because suddenly a question came up from deep within me, a question from the truest deepest part of my soul finally had the chance to bubble up to the surface and make itself known:

“If this place isn’t good enough, healthy enough, loving enough, conscious enough for your unborn children… why is it ok for you to be here?”

My marriage ended that day.

I didn’t leave for about a month after that, but the push I needed came in the form of this moment for me and there was no denying it. I could never come up with any justifiable answer to the question that kept me in a relationship that was destructive to both me and my then husband, whether he understood that or not.

Being My Own Ally

The opening that occurred for me that night was the seed that has long been growing within me. It’s powerful to really look at how we would treat our babies or someone we love dearly and compare it to how we treat ourselves. Nothing will shine a light on your own lack of self worth than doing this.

We are fiercely protective of those we love, making sure they have all they need, love them, shower them with adoration, advocate for them, show endless patience while they learn something new, give them attention and strive daily to be better at how we love them.

What I realized that night at my journal was that I was relegating myself to second, third or even fourth class when it came to deserving of care and love and happiness. And though I didn’t quite know how to treat myself with as much fierce loyalty and love as I would my unborn babies, I knew that what I had been doing up until that moment was not it.

Why don’t we do this with ourselves?

For me this is a matter of being our own best ally. How do you have your own back when it comes to care, nourishment, relationships and health?

Let this be a measuring stick for how you love yourself;

Are you being your own best ally?

Are you looking out for your best care?

Are you nourishing yourself with he best whole foods to keep you healthy and alive?

Are you giving yourself the love you need to feel good, appreciated and seen?

Are you choosing the most loving, respectful and honorable people to connect with and be around?

Are you placing yourself in situations that are safe, inspiring and uplifting?

Often or always, the answer to these questions is ‘no’. And this isn’t something else to use to beat ourselves up over. It just shines a light on the places that need more care, more attention, more love. We can do that. Little by little, each day as a practice in self care. That’s as much as we can do, and it’s our personal holy work.

Food Is Love

We often heard about how food isn’t a replacement for love, even though many of us have used it that way. Like a drug we use to help fill the void we feel where love should reside.

But I’m about turning this nonsense on it’s head. How we feed ourselves can absolutely be love. Loving ourselves by choosing and eating healthy, clean, whole and delicious food is a way to love ourselves and our life force. It validates that we are inf act worthy of living, of living well, long and vibrantly.

This goes back to what for me is the entire point of this blog; How we feed ourselves one thing is how we feed ourselves all things.

My dear hearts, how are you feeding yourself? Lets work at being our own most loving and best allies this week when it comes to loving ourselves in general, and when it comes to loving ourselves with food.

Comments

Spot on! Love this post, love this message! It hits really close to home and no matter how much I think I “know” this, it is so important to impress this understanding down to my very core! Thanks for a great post again Elena!